


the summer you lost your mind

by warandrunning



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Institute Ending, POV Second Person, and all the guilt/angst that implies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9797804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warandrunning/pseuds/warandrunning
Summary: Creature comforts will only get you so far. No amount of scalding water will rinse the blood from your hands, Lady Macbeth, or clear the guilt from your conscience.





	

_That summer I did not go crazy_   
_but I wore_   
_very close_

_very close_   
_to the bone._

_Dorothy Allison, “To the Bone”_

  


Creature comforts will only get you so far. No amount of scalding water will rinse the blood from your hands, Lady Macbeth, or clear the guilt from your conscience.

_Out, out, damned spot!_

Was it worth the luxury of good water pressure? Does the gin, strong and pure and radiation-free, help you forget? Can you sleep, head buried in your down feather pillows?

Of course you can. Think about the alternative.

_Deacon grins at you, lopsided and knowing. A synth, pen gripped between trembling fingers, learns how to shape the letters of his new name. Another lifts her hand to shade her eyes, looking up at the wide expanse of impossibly blue sky, and knows with deep, unshakeable certainty who she wants to be._

No, not that alternative. This one.

_People die of cold and malnourishment and radiation poisoning. They wear their feet to the bone walking the earth, while you remember when humanity owned the sky. They forget. Everyone forgets. Millennia of human progress, crushed by violence and mourned by no one. No one except you._

Remember the big picture. That’s what he would say, if he were here.

He isn’t, of course. He’s gone, and no measure of medicine or science, no matter how advanced, could have saved him. Cursed by faulty genes and insufficient data.

But his legacy lives on—you have seen to that. You will carry on, tunneling deep into the ground to expand your Institute’s research, knowledge, capabilities. Soon, you will have strength enough to return to the surface. You have already defeated the Institute’s great enemies, so it will not be a difficult task. You will lead the efforts to cleanse this Wasteland of its ills. You will be your son’s legacy.

Doesn’t matter. He is still dead, along with your husband, the rest of your family. The new family you found. The new family you betrayed. All of them, everyone you ever loved—gone.

_Glory blows a smoke ring toward the ceiling, then bursts into laughter. Tinker Tom’s eyes are fever-bright, and you don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but you don’t have the heart to curb his enthusiasm. Drummer Boy lays his head on your shoulder, heavy and warm and full of affection._

Your hands are raw from scrubbing, but their blood still spots your skin. You will always smell of the surface, will always be stained with its dirt and dust, no matter how you drown yourself in bath gels and perfumes.

 _Can_ you sleep, between your clean white sheets, numbed by the finest liquor humanity can craft? Was it worth it? Truly?

No.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been taunting me from my Google Drive for... a while... and it's as done as it's getting. So here, some depressing drabble, courtesy of me. I'm restivewit on Tumblr, if you want to come yell with me there!


End file.
